


Custos

by hatrickane (dandelionwhiskey)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Sorcerers, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 14:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11534544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionwhiskey/pseuds/hatrickane
Summary: The legend goes as this: The Sorcerer of Mount Custos, the guardian, serves as the protector of the farmfolk.Patrick thinks it's bullshit.





	Custos

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the wonderful [kaneoodle](http://kaneoodle.tumblr.com) for her kickass beta skills.  
> Thanks to my beautiful [eberbae](http://eberbae.tumblr.com) for the prompt. 
> 
> This is a different type of fic for me, for sure, so I hope you enjoy.

The legend goes as this: The Sorceror of Mount Custos, the guardian, serves as the protector of the farmfolk. 

The mountain stands like a monolith, proud and indestructible, a pillar of comfort for the countryside. At its peak, the Sorcerer oversees his people and casts spells of prosperity, fair weather, loamy land. He keeps the raiders and bandits at bay with strikes of lightning, or blocking the singular pathway through with whip-sharp wind. 

It’s tradition to honor the Sorceror with each harvest. There’s a festival of music, laughter flowing between the dancing groups of farmers and bringing the deepest level of joy to each person who sends their gratitude up the mountain. 

Patrick thinks it’s bullshit. 

“Why would some old man sit up there and watch us all day and night?” He asks flatly, much to the chagrin of his sisters. They’re in the fields, thatched baskets hitched up on their hips as they collect wheat. Patrick has his scythe slung over his shoulders as he watches them gather what he’s harvested to put in their baskets. The sun beats down unforgivingly, freckling up his pink shoulders and back. 

“He cares for us,” Jacqueline says with a huff, scooping up an armful of wheat and dumping it into her basket. “He wants us to prosper.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Patrick sighs. He stares up at the peak of Custos, so high it almost pierces the crisp blue sky. No one has ventured to travel further than where the trees begin to break, just a half day’s walk up the slope. Patrick wonders what’s beyond that break. 

“Does it matter?” Jessica says, taking the scythe from Patrick’s hands and hacking at a particularly stubborn thatch of wheat. “Mother said if you keep asking those questions you’re going to be moved to latrine duty.”

Patrick snorts. “If they’ll punish me for curiosity, I guess I deserve it.” 

His sisters have never understood Patrick’s fascination with uncovering the truth of the mountain. Patrick suspects they enjoy the parties too much to question anything. 

Still, at night, Patrick sits along the outside wall of his cottage and stares up at the mountain. The peak is just under the curve of the moon, and Patrick imagines it must be blinding up there. The magic Patrick knows is very tangible; it’s the way his mother laughs or how the coolest, cleanest well-water from the east side of the village tastes after a long day of work. It’s in the dreams where he’s flying and he wakes up feeling light as a feather.

It doesn’t exist, he surmises, in the fingers of some ancient man on the top of a mountain. 

The day he decides to hike Custos is the day he sees disappointment in his father’s eyes for the first time. Patrick ducks his head in shame, but he doesn’t feel any less compelled than before he made his announcement. 

“Heretic,” he hears, from people he considered his friends, his family. “You’ll ruin things for all of us.”

“If we die next winter, we’ll know whose name to curse.” 

Patrick steels himself against the insults. He’s confident that he’ll find nothing up there but a smattering of snow and some woodland animals. What he doesn’t know is how he’ll return to his village afterward - what news he’s supposed to bring them. Just how he’ll break their hearts. 

He stuffs a rucksack of blankets and food along with a few jugs of fresh water. His plan is to follow the river that winds up, fish for food if he runs out, and camp out along the riverbeds. He’ll map his course and bring his findings back, hopeful that he can present his people with something worthwhile.

“Take Maurice,” his mother insists, passing him the mule’s reins. “He’ll carry your things when you’re weary.”

“You need him,” Patrick argues, “he’ll help the girls carry back the harvest in my absence.”

His mother juts her chin out defiantly, and Patrick’s heart aches with how he’ll miss her on his journey. “Take him,” she says again. “We’ll make do without you.”

Patrick gathers his mother into his arms, pressing his cheek to hers. It’s warm and wet with tears, but Patrick doesn’t pull away until she tugs at the back of his tunic. Patrick meets her watery eyes and offers an embarrassed smile.

“Go,” she says, “follow that wilderness you’ve always had in your heart.”

Patrick winds Maurice’s reins around his knuckles, gives his mother a firm nod, and turns toward Custos with his eye on the sky.

It’s sun up when he sets off, the early red rays filtering in through the thick forest canopy and painting his footsteps. The river runs steadily beside him. Its clear rapids pour in velvet cascades over the rocky bed underneath and Patrick allows the sound of it to calm his nerves. 

He’s not sure what that twist is in his stomach, something that makes him take smaller steps the closer he gets to the forest edge. Beyond that treeline is a mystery he’s desperate to solve, but one he’s not sure he’s ready to. 

As the trees thin out, Patrick brushes some fallen leaves away from the forest floor and sits among the moss. He puts out a wooden bowl with water for Maurice to lap up while he munches on bread he and Erica had baked over the fire the night before. It’s peaceful, for a moment, just the sound of the animals chirping and rustling, Maurice’s heavy breathing coming in rhythmic huffs. 

“You’re okay,” Patrick says soothingly, brushing his knuckles against the mule’s soft muzzle. “We’re in no hurry.” 

When Patrick finally musters the courage to pass through to the valley, the sun has passed from overhead and it’s starting to descend into afternoon. He takes a deep breath of the cloying air and pulls Maurice slowly behind him, breaking through to the vale. 

Ahead of him, Patrick sees roving hills covered in bright green grass, dotted with willowy wildflowers swaying in the breeze. It reminds Patrick of the wheat fields, in a way, or the prairies off to the south. There’s no clear path through the brush, but he can see where the hills jut into ledges he’ll be able to follow further up. He knows there’s a way to the top, it’s just a matter of finding it. 

He makes camp among the flowers that night, their tangy pollen tickling his nose as Maurice’s stomach slowly rises and falls under Patrick’s head. As the embers slowly burn down on his small fire, Patrick watches that mountain peak, just as he had every evening back in his village. 

But this time, as his eyes drift shut, he sees a flicker. 

Patrick sits up so fast his head swims and Maurice makes a gruff, displeased noise. “Sorry,” Patrick whispers, though the sounds of nature drown him out. His eyes are trained on that spot, a dim, red glow wavering so far in the distance that it’s barely a pinpoint. 

It’s a fire, Patrick knows that much. He scrambles to find his water jug and, without another thought, throws it on his own fire until it’s completely extinguished. His heart is in his throat, beating so fast he’s having a difficult time catching his breath.

There’s someone up there. Patrick swallows as he gazes up the mountain, really wishing he had some of that water left to wet his parched mouth. He shakes his head. Even if a man lives on the top of the mountain, that in no way implies any  _ magic _ . He could just be a vagrant or a bandit seeking refuge from the kingdom authorities. 

Either way, Patrick is determined to know. 

He barely sleeps, fitfully bursting awake each time the breeze is too sharp against his skin. He has wild, barely-there dreams of reaching the peak and finding ghosts. Not that he believes in such things. 

It takes him five nights to come upon his destination. He follows the river until it freezes, light dustings of snow replacing the crunch of leaves he’d grown accustomed to. The cold is bearable, but unpleasant, and Patrick is grateful his mom snuck extra clothes into his pack. 

He loses his path a few times but continues up, up, until that red pinprick of light he’d seen that first night becomes a roaring fire with a figure huddled close to it. He never sees the man during the day, only once the sun has gone down and the night takes over. Patrick focuses on it, drives toward it, thirsts for the answer that fire holds. 

He’s about a half-day walk away from his goal when he begins to get nervous. He can’t surmise that the mysterious figure even wants company, and even if he does, it’s impossible to predict how he’ll react to Patrick wandering into his home. He finds himself hesitating, watching, wondering if the man even knows that Patrick has come all this way just to find him.

As it turns out, he’s not left waiting very long.

Patrick is relieving himself on a pine while Maurice looks on disinterestedly. Patrick gives him an unimpressed look. 

“Enjoy your eyeful,” he says flatly to the mule. 

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Maurice says back, and Patrick falls bare-assed into snow dune prickled with pine cones. He lets out a curse word that his mother would absolutely not approve of, and is met with a gentle chuckle. 

“Are you okay?”

Patrick has realized by then that it’s not Maurice speaking to him, but someone much further back, hidden by a thicket of trees. 

“Show yourself,” Patrick demands.

“Maybe you want to pull up your trousers, first,” the voice teases. It’s twinkling with mirth but something deeper, like concern, or wariness. 

Patrick scrambles back up to his feet and yanks his pants back up, shooting a glare at his mule who blinks black slowly at him. “Useless,” he mutters. Maurice, if he understands, does not respond.

“Okay, I’m decent,” says Patrick. “Tell me who you are. Um, please?” He tacks on awkwardly.

A man steps out from the trees donning a light cloak, much lighter than Patrick’s wool. He’s slender and tall, but muscular, and smirking. Something tugs in Patrick’s lower stomach and he feels his face warming against the cool air. 

“I’m Jonathan,” he says, spreading his arms out in front of him. His clothes don’t look nearly warm enough and his hands are bare. Patrick feels strangely awkward with his thick gloves and boots. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Patrick blurts out. Jonathan shakes his head. 

“I run warm,” he says, like Patrick is supposed to be satisfied with that answer. “Now that I’ve introduced myself, maybe you should do the same?”

The guy is somewhat rude, Patrick notes, which makes him raise his chin slightly defiantly. “I’m Patrick Kane,” he says, “of the farmfolk at the base of the mountain.”

“You’ve been hiking a long time,” Jonathan says, apparently not interested in acknowledging Patrick’s introduction. “I imagine you want some warm food. A drink?”

Patrick’s stomach rumbles, giving away his position, but he refuses to go anywhere with the man until he learns at least a little bit more. He takes a step toward him so he can take Maurice’s reins, and nods once. “You live up here,” he states. “How long?”

“As long as I can remember,” says Jonathan. 

“Family?”

Jonathan shakes his head and clasps his hands behind his back.

“What do you do all day?” Patrick finally asks. A sharp breeze cuts through and Patrick shields against it, but Jonathan stands unmoving. 

“I watch,” he says. “Now, follow me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

 

**

 

Jonathan’s camp is not what Patrick had expected. It’s actually less of a camp, and more of a keep in the mouth of a cave. The stone glitters with what have to be gemstones, dizzying Patrick with their gleam against the bright sun. The firepit that Patrick had stared at so many nights is surrounded by carved pedestals, both wood and stone interwoven with bright green moss and adorned with symbols Patrick doesn’t recognize. 

As soon as he steps foot in the encampment, it’s as if he’s standing in his wheatfield at the base of the mountain under the bright, hot sun. He lets out a startled breath, suddenly far too warm in his clothes. 

He strips off his jacket and kneels, pressing his fingers into the snow on the ground. It doesn’t melt under his fingertips nor does it feel cold to the touch. Patrick swallows thickly. 

“I don’t like it too cold,” Jonathan says as he whips off the light cloak. Under the green tunic he’s wearing, Patrick can see the curves of his back and hips. He clears his throat. 

“But how do you do it?” He asks, rising again to his feet and crossing his arms in front of him. Jonathan gives him a simple smile and shrugs. 

“Magic,” he says. “Of course.”

Patrick shakes his head. “Magic doesn’t exist.”

Jonathan’s expression doesn’t change, though, he just takes a few steps closer to Patrick and reaches out to begin unbuttoning his tunic. Patrick stands frozen, allowing Jonathan’s nimble fingers to strip him of his shirt. 

“You can believe that,” Jonathan says, pushing Patrick’s shirt off of his shoulders. “And if you can explain why you aren’t cold right now, then I’ll accept it.” 

Patrick shivers out of spite. Jonathan’s fingertips are still on his shoulders, and Patrick wonders if that would be a good enough explanation for why he feels warm all over. He figures not. 

“You’re a sorcerer,” Patrick murmurs. Jonathan says nothing, but his eyes speak volumes. Patrick moves in closer. “You watch over us.”

“I do,” Jonathan says. He purses his lips. “Although, the bounties aren’t necessary. The offerings, whatever you call them.” 

Patrick barks out a laugh, his hand moving up to cup Jonathan’s cheek of his own accord. “I thought it was a lie,” he says softly. “A legend, or a story.”

Jonathan smiles. “I forgive you, Patrick Kane.”

 

**

 

Patrick spends the evening at Jonathan’s campfire eating fruits he’s never heard of and drinking sweet wine he’d never tasted. Jonathan tells him stories; back to the dawn of their civilization and earlier, when magic was more than just a myth. He even tells stories of the farmfolk, ones that Patrick has never heard before. 

“But why,” Patrick asks, half-drunk on wine and watching the fire lick light up Jonathan’s throat. “Why us?”

“Your people are kind,” Jonathan explains, “not interested in war. You’re good to the earth. Respectful of what it provides you. If that doesn’t deserve protection, I don’t know what is.”

Patrick shakes his head. “There are people like you in the village,” he says, curling his fingers around the clay goblet he’s been sipping from. “They don’t eat the animals we catch and cook. We tease them.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes. “There’s nothing ridiculous about caring for the earth,” he says with an air of haughtiness. “And the animals are precious.” Patrick can’t help it, he starts to giggle, the wine causing his head to swim with joy. Jonathan gives him a flat look. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says through his laughter, “I just never expected you to be like this.”

“I thought you didn’t expect me to be anything at all,” Jonathan says, clipped. Patrick continues to grin. 

“Well, you’re certainly something,” he says. Jonathan softens, then gazes at the fire until Patrick’s laughter dies down. He takes a deep breath and sets his eyes on Patrick.

“There’s a legend,” he starts, and Patrick feels the weight of his words pressing heavy on his shoulders. “A prophecy, really. It speaks of you.”

“Me?” Patrick says disbelievingly. “What do I do?”

“Not specifically you,” Jonny says hastily, waving his hand in front of his face. “But of a nonbeliever. A tenacious, determined man who climbs Custos in search of truth.” 

Patrick attempts not to puff out his chest in pride. Jonathan’s bemused look shuts down that urge fairly quickly. “You think that’s me?” Patrick asks.

Jonathan takes a long sip of his wine. “That remains to be seen,” he says easily. “It depends on whether you fulfill the rest of the prophecy.”

Patrick stares at him and puts his goblet down. “Well, what’s the next part?” He says. His heart is beating a little too hard in his chest as he looks hard into Jonathan’s deep, brown eyes. 

“I can’t tell you that,” Jonathan sighs. “Obviously. It has to be of your own free will.”

“Then why tell me about it at all?” Patrick asks grumpily. Jonathan shakes his head. 

“I don’t know, Patrick,” he says. “There’s something… it doesn’t matter.”

Jonathan looks into the fire for a long while after that. Patrick watches him all the while, taking in his demeanor (along with the sharpness of his cheekbones, the bow of his lips). The silence is comfortable among the crackling from the fire and the howling wind through the mountain peaks. It’s peaceful, and Patrick tries to memorize every bit of it. 

“Do you get lonely up here?” Patrick asks, much further into the night. Jonathan doesn’t seem surprised by his question. 

“It’s nice to have another living thing to speak with,” Jonathan says with a strained smile. Patrick’s heart aches for him - they’d hardly talked in the last hour. 

“Why don’t you come down to the village?” Patrick asks. “My people would be honored to meet you.” Patrick considers this. “Actually, my sisters would probably faint.” 

Jonathan chuckles at that and Patrick feels the vibration from it despite him sitting on the other side of the fire pit. “I appreciate the invitation, truly, but it’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Patrick asks, attempting not to chew on his bottom lip.  

“Most people,” Jonathan says, “don’t enjoy discovering that their gods are just as human as they are.”

There’s so much in his voice, a story that he perhaps had left out earlier. Patrick decides not to press it. Instead, he stands and goes to Jonathan, kneeling in the snow and putting his hands on his knees. 

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” he says, “human parts and all.”

Jonathan cups Patrick’s chin gently as he leans forward to rest his lips right there, right over Patrick’s. The sensation floods Patrick’s body instantaneously, filling him with a tingling energy he’s never felt before. He opens his mouth to it, leans in and tries to drink it in, his body strung tight with the power Jonathan has just under his fingertips. 

When they part, after just a moment, Patrick feels as if the breath has been knocked from his lungs. “Oh,” he says, not sure if he has any words left in his brain. 

“Patrick,” Jonathan says, thumbing along Patrick’s lower lip, “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, too.” 

Patrick surges back up to kiss Jonathan again, already addicted to the sparks emanating from his skin. He sits up tall on his knees so he can get his arms around Jonathan’s neck, anchor him in, keep every inch of him near Patrick’s body. 

When he does pull away, mouth raw and wet, he blinks up at Jonathan with wide eyes. “What is… what is this?” He asks in a thin voice. Everything in him is trembling, magnetized toward Jonathan. The idea of not touching him is devastating. 

“A curse,” Jonathan says, “or a blessing. Depending on how you look at it.” 

“What, you’re irresistible to humans or something?” Patrick asks warily. Jonathan’s return chuckle actually manages to sooth Patrick’s impending panic.

“Just one,” he says, stroking his long fingers through Patrick’s hair, catching his knuckles on the curls. “According to the prophecy, anyway.”

Patrick leans into Jonathan’s touch and attempts not to nuzzle. “So, the non-believer in the story,” he starts, “you’re connected to them?”

“We’re connected to each other,” Jonathan clarifies. 

Patrick snorts. “It can’t be me,” he says, “I’m nothing special. Just a wheat farmer.” 

Jonathan draws Patrick into another kiss, something long and lingering and full of promise. “I guess I’m stuck with a wheat farmer, then,” he says, his breath fanning over Patrick’s cheek.

“And I’m stuck eating vegetables for the rest of my days, aren’t I,” he whines. Jonathan stands, then, drawing Patrick up with him. 

“Probably,” he agrees.

 

** 

 

Patrick ventures back down the mountain after a week with Jonathan - Jonny, he’s decided - in his encampment. Once he begins to ache for his family, Jonny has to practically force him back down the mountain to see them once again. He blankets Patrick in spells to ease his journey and sends him with enchanted objects to return to the people of his village. Nothing too extravagant - just a water pail that never gets heavy and cloaks that never get wet. 

He finds out very quickly that no one in his village expected him to return. Their relief and frank surprise would be insulting if Patrick wasn’t so happy to see them. He spends another fortnight there in the village, telling stories of the sorcerer and his generosity - but leaving out one, big, important thing. 

When he finally breaks the news to his family, it’s as if they knew all along he’d been planning on leaving again. 

“Patrick,” says his mother, “your calling is on Custos, keeping watch over us all.” 

“Are you in love with him?” Erica asks him. “You speak as if you are.” 

“He is,” Jackie confirms, without consulting with Patrick. 

“I knew it,” says Erica. 

Even his father squeezes his shoulder, a smile in his eyes. “We were right,” he jokes gently, and Patrick resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Yes, father,” he concedes. “You were right. And now, I’ll go live out my shame on the mountain and be forced to help keep you all in line.” 

“You’ll be wonderful,” says his mother. “They’ll tell stories about you.”

“I’ll come back,” Patrick keeps insisting, though he’s met with handwaves and choruses of ‘you’d better not.’ 

He’d never thought that his journey up the mountain would mean he’d be leaving his home forever, but when faced with it, he’s surprisingly calm. He stands at the base of Custos, looking up its steep slope, the moon low in the sky. It’s the middle of the night - much better to leave before anyone wakes. He takes a deep breath and begins to walk. 

“Patrick Kane, you stop right there,” he hears, and nearly stumbles. He turns around sharply and finds his mother, gripping Maurice’s reins tightly in her outstretched hand. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

 

**

 

(Maurice gets his own stable in Jonny’s encampment, filled with enough feed to keep him fat and happy.)

 

** 

 

It’s winter down in the village and everyone is in their own stages of hibernation. Jonny has enchanted a small puddle near the firepit that reflects back to Patrick the goings-on of his people, so that he may keep an eye the way Jonny does. Some days, he sits and watches for hours, letting Jonny rub his shoulders or stroke his hair.  

They tell each other stories - Jonny’s, of course, long epics culminating in how the earth was created, how civilization rose, how the clouds formed; and Patrick’s being about the time Erica pushed him into the mud when they were children and he broke his hand. Both are equally interesting, Jonny insists. 

Jonny sometimes calls him the Truthseeker, which Patrick thinks is fairly cheesy, but it still makes his stomach clench up with pleasure. They map the stars and name the images they see in them. Patrick once wonders aloud if they’re Gods, and Jonathan makes fun of him for the rest of the day. 

They watch, and protect, and learn. Patrick learns a new respect for the earth beneath his feet. He doesn’t know if Jonny has learned anything from him, yet, although he curses a lot more often than when they’d first met. 

“What could you possibly want to do with me?” Patrick asks one night, curled up against Jonny, nude on the impossibly soft blankets Jonny had strewn about the encampment. 

“It’s not like you to be self-deprecating,” Jonny says, and Patrick can hear the frown in his voice even though he isn’t looking at him. He presses his mouth to Jonny’s chest. 

“I’m not,” he argues. “I’m just wondering. You’ve been on Custos since before our village existed. You’ve seen so much.”

Jonny is quiet for awhile, his even breaths rustling Patrick’s hair. After a long moment, he winds his arm around Patrick’s waist and tugs him close. “Maybe so,” he says. “I’ve seen the rise and fall of societies. I’ve seen oceans shape stone. I’ve seen the stars fall from the sky.” 

Patrick swallows and ducks his head into Jonathan’s chest. 

“But more recently, I’ve seen true devotion. Compassion, curiosity. I’ve seen ecstasy.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Patrick mutters. 

“I may have seen a lot, Patrick,” Jonathan continues, tilting Patrick’s chin up until there’s no escape from the ethereal draw of Jonathan’s eyes. “But now…”

“But now?” Patrick presses, trying to find his breath as he waits for Jonny’s answer. 

“Now, I get to see you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on [tumblr!](http://hatrickane.tumblr.com)


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